Hi I know you guys like to argue a lot about politics, but perhaps you
could take a moment to help me out with my problem, and here it is:

I have a 1972 Evinrude 85HP V4 Outboard that has been running fine
until it overheated (didn't seize) when the water pump disintegrated.
After the WP came apart, pieces of it messed up the thermostat (or
whatever it is OMC calls it) so I fixed that and the cooling system
works. I took the boat out for a test run and it starts good, idles
good but when you give it full throttle, it seems like the ignition is
severely missing -but only under load- because as soon as the boat gets
on plane, it seems to run fine. It's like spark is jumping to ground
(somewhere other than it should) on one or two cylinders when under
load.

I inspected the Spark plug wires and the coil wire and I don't see
anything obviously wrong. I ordered some new wire and new plugs (old
plugs look OK, perhaps a touch blacker than they ought to be, like it's
running a touch rich) I looked into the spark plug holes and pistons
look good and compression is pretty even on all four cyl. I haven't put
in the new wires (waiting for them to arrive UPS) or plugs but I
wondered if anyone else has seen this behavior before.

Thanks

JM
Chehalis, WA